The country has already lost 1.2 million immigrant workers from farming to construction to service industries to the food industry. All doing work that Americans won't do at wages Americans wouldn't accept. It's only going to get worse. The trump administration is fucking America in the ass. Go after the immigrant criminals selectively and leave the hard-working immigrants who are essential to our economy alone.
Interesting article. First, American Workers as one farmer said, don't want to do this work. So, that means passing legislation to fix the problem that doesn't require a mound of paperwork. Politically, it appears to be very difficult to do. I suppose when prices go thru the roof or food isn't around, maybe something happens. Or maybe not.
The country has already lost 1.2 million immigrant workers from farming to construction to service industries to the food industry. All doing work that Americans won't do at wages Americans wouldn't accept. It's only going to get worse. The trump administration is fucking America in the ass. Go after the immigrant criminals selectively and leave the hard-working immigrants who are essential to our economy alone.
But are you saying undocumented immigrants should have no repercussions at all for breaking our laws? I think there is a middle ground between what the Orange Man is doing and what you are saying. "Leaving them alone" implies to do absolutely nothing. That is not where the average voter stands on this issue. Joe's handling of the border cost us dearly in the most recent election and Dems need a common sense policy to address it.
It's a complicated issue. Many immigrants have green cards, or temporary protective status, or pending asylum cases with work permits but are still be rounded up. There's fear in immigrant communities as families are being torn apart. The current Gestapo tactics, that are likely to intensify as ICE expands its workforce, are clearly not the answer. Like it or not immigrants have become essential workers who keep our economy going and our life-style intact. I'm okay with starting with deporting criminal immigrants who have been given due process as we collectively figure out how to legalize essential immigrant workers. However, I have no faith that the current administration will do anything to try to resolve a very complex dilemma.
That's exactly the point I'm trying to make. Those undocumented individuals should go to the back of the line, undergo proper vetting, and be required to pay a fine or perform community service as there MUST be SOME accountability. You suggested we should simply "leave them alone" but that's not the answer the American people are looking for.
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If you're saying that meaningful action isn’t feasible while Orange Hair is in office, that's understandable, but that doesn’t mean we should wait to put forward our proposals. Delaying until he's out of office risks missing the opportunity to present real solutions to the public which has become very skeptical how our side has handled this fiasco.
Why has the public, and its damn near an 80/20 issue become skeptical of how your side has handled this fiasco? YOUR SIDE took Trump's previous restraints off illegal crossings, removed borderwalls, cancelled planned construction, worked with NGOs all thru central and south America setting up a system for them to come across our borders by the 100's of 1000's. I winter in the Rio Grande Valley and anyone that was interested could go into areas like old town Mission and watch the busloads come in with plastic bags of documents handed to them as the got off the bus, shuttled inside buildings, processed and at night, shuttled to Mcallen airport or the airport in Harlingen for one way flights to locations across the country. Bus after bus after bus, it was a non-stop system of pushing illegal immigrants thru the border towns as fast as possible.
The difference recently was that social media couldn't keep this wrapped up anymore and others were allowed to see what the media would not show them. This had very little to do with picking food or cutting grass, this was done to try and set the electorate for the next 30 years.
So there is a program already in place.... H-2A visa's among others.
So again people are saying ONLY immigrants can do these jobs? Or is it "slave" labor?
Seriously???? What happened to high school age kids working before and after school? How about hiring others to do farm work? Milking now is a hell of a lot easier than when I did it 30 years ago.... many places is it all robotics. All you do is run a "scraper"....ie: moving shit around... literally shit. Then moving feed. Very little moving cows. All you have to do is know when the machines break down and what to do then. Yes I did over simplify it. But it isn't putting on the milkers, sanitizing the teets, taking off milkers, moving cows, feeding, cleaning up the shit, etc. It is alot less.
Then the picking of crops.... all depends on the crop. But many tractors are self driving. Once you got the chip in from the planting. You combine the first rows and let it go. Just need to monitor when it fills up. Hardest part is driving the wagons and keeping up when the combine is full. (driving same speed).
Now I have said it for a long time. Our immigration system needs an overhaul. But what happened under Biden was a HUGE fuck up. Sorry the whole open the door was just fucked up. If you dont think that is what happened.... you are blind.
What IS true is only immigrants are WILLING to do them. This includes high school aged kids. It just ain't gonna happen.
You are right that our immigration system needs an overhaul AND that Biden screwed it up. He was hoping for a deal with Republicans for immigration reform. When that didn't happen he finally slammed the door but it was too late.
Biden never had his hand on the door FFS and they sure as shit did NOT shut it when they didn't get their amnesty for 30 million illegals. The dems first move in office was to remove every restriction they could which allowed the caravans to start rolling for 4 years and NGO's bankrolled by our tax dollars had the trains running better than Amtrack could have ever done. Trump slammed the door, locked it and put an armed guard there to stand and keep watch.
Biden had nothing to do with it, that fucker didn't even know what day of the week it was. Just call it the administration from now on, it was his people around him that walked him from room to room and pointed to shit for him to sign.
You have a bad habit of saying those who don't agree with you are blind. We're not.
Our immigration system is broken and in desperate need of repair. There was good (as in a good start ) bipartisan legislation proposed ( Border Act of 2024 ) by Senators Murphy and Lankford that was killed by Senate republicans at the command of trump. Trump and like-minded republicans don't want to fix immigration because they want it to be a never-ending political issue.
...before and after school? How about hiring others to do farm work?"
They tried it SIXTY YEARS AGO with high school athletes and it didn't work then so it sure as hell wouldn't work with today's Tik Tok generation. The original A-TEAM - Athletes in Temporary Employment as Agricultural Manpower, aimed to hire American teenagers to work on farms.
http://www.vantrumpreport.com/2025/08/26/the-forgotten-1965-us-a-team-farm-worker-program/
Here's an interview with someone who was one of those high school farmworkers:
http://www.cnn.com/2025/08/23/business/video/us-goverment-a-team-american-teens-replace-migrant-workers-digvid
Please read the article. What u are expousing is not what is happening any more.
I did read it.... and it says that the paperwork is a nightmare. Which I said the system needs to be re-worked.
What I was getting at is others are not filling the gap..... WHY? People are unemployed.... right? Why are not kids filling these jobs? They were back in the 80's and 90's. Why did it shift?
Why don't colleges or even FFA's or high schools do work study programs to fill these gaps? Why rely on "immigration"?
Honest and serious question?
If you want to talk about construction industry..... They made BILLIONS the past decade by using "cheap" labor and exploited immigration. This is FACT. Not saying immigrants do poor work. But quality has gone down. Reason why is because they started to focus more on "speed".....ie: how fast can we throw up these homes. Look at all the "huge" developers.
Want to talk about exploitation....Look at how "storm chasers" go into an area and out of an area. They throw on roofs in a day or two and are gone. Not saying the work is shitty.... but the "contractor" is hiring these crews that are immigrants paying them either a "per job" type thing. In my area the average "insurance" job for roofs when a hail storm last came thru was $25K-$30K. That is what companies were paying. I talked with the local lumber yard they said materials were about $5-6K typically. He was telling me they contractors were paying these "crews" anywhere from $8-10K per job and pocketing the rest. Now add in permits and dumpsters on top of materials.... but the contractors were pocketing around $10K for just taking phone calls. Talk about exploitation. Now I had my roof done on a vacation property I own and talked to the crew doing it. They were happy and said they got paid well.... I asked them what they made. They told me they made $800 per job. They worked about 2 days on my property (small town home association 8 units, 4 buildings). They were telling me they typically could kick out 3 jobs a week. Roughly making $40 an hour.
Yes, it does to be reworked. But the current climate won't let it be. Trump won't let it be. There was a bi-partisan bill to address our imigration problem put out by one of the most conservative Senators we have. And Trump killed it. Would it have fixed the entire problem? Probably not, but it was a good start.
As far as exploitation, if there were not folks willing to take a job for a given amount then the employer has either a choice to wait it out, raise the pay, or don't do a job at all. Is it exploitation, maybe yes, maybe no. Some would call it capitalism at work. In any event, there are people at this point, willing to do the work for someone willing to pay them. Its no different than when I get 3 or 4 estimates for a roof re-do. Cost is not always the factor with me. Its part of it, but not the only thing. With an employer, sometimes its the only thing.
Has there ever been a "bipartisan" immigration bill considered that didn't have amnesty for all attached to it at one point?
I said it was a start. Better than what we had. And remember, it was James Imholfe (very conservative Senator) who authorzed the legislations. I seem to remember Trump killed it because he didn't want Biden to have a win and run on that. Semms to me if was so bad, Trump would have been happy for it to be passed.
The issue with the bill that Democrats were fighting for is that Trump was able to close down the border without it. Bringing up this failed bill just illustrates how ineffectual the Democrats were. I voted against Trump 3 times but it was pretty clear Joe wasn't running the show and his administration just implemented an incredibly radical immigration policy and didn't change it for like 4 years. They didn't need any bills to open the border why were they asking for one to close it?
Why?? One reason it would have given automatic refugee status once they crossed over. It left the flow at the discretion of the president to close it once it hit 4000 per crossers per a particular time period that i cannot recall but think it was a week or month and per checkpoint. It would have had a clause to be closed automatically at 5000 per checkpoint but that was only an option for 2 or 3 years, then it would expire. It had the most insane shit in it. It would have insured 1.5 MILLION illegals coming in each year and they would have ALL been fast tracked as approved to stay as political refugees. Win/Win for the dems had biden or the vice prostitute won as the courts could have caught up after a couple years of no new cases coming in and the electorate would have been changed forever and given dems control of the electoral college for another 30 years at least.
With the chaos that is coming soon to Medicaid. the Cheetos eating couch potatoes living in his mommies basement will be forced to work on those farms. That is the plan...ya know
Figure in Tioga County, for example where trump won by 75% of the vote, can you see alot of MAGats working those farms just to milk those cows. And if that doesn't work, lower the working age to 8 years. We're having a brain drain anyways.
Imagine career day at the local high school. The booth will be filled
Pick Oranges In Florida for 7.25 hour
Work the Peanut farm in Georgia
Or Tyson Chicken plant in Iowa is hiring.
Oh boo hoo the poor farmers are struggling. They have no workers or markets to sell their crops. Fuck the farmers, they're getting what they voted for. I got hurt by the tariffs now its their turn to take a bite of the shit sandwich.